


Space Invaders

by amathela



Category: Wizards of Waverly Place
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aliens, Apocalypse, Community: Apocabigbang, Drama, F/M, Humor, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-28
Updated: 2011-04-28
Packaged: 2017-10-18 18:12:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amathela/pseuds/amathela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Justin was right. (Of course.) Which sucks for Alex. Especially since it means aliens are now on their way to Earth, and, oh yeah, they want to destroy the world. So, someone should probably stop them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Space Invaders

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers up to episode _4:1 - Alex Tells The World._

In her defence, Alex would just like to say this: She waits until they get all the way home before she starts blaming Justin.

(Well. Almost.)

"This is all your fault," she says, and he stops - so suddenly she bumps into the back of him, like, yeah, that's safe - and turns around to look at her.

"Seriously?" he asks. "We're not even inside yet, and already you want to talk about whose fault this was?"

"We're in the doorway," she points out. Or, rather, he is, and she would be, if he hadn't stopped so suddenly.

"Oh, so that makes it okay, then?"

"To blame you for something that's totally your fault? Yeah, it does."

"Totally my fault?" he asks. "You were there, too. And let's not forget that we were both on trial. I'm not the only one who exposed magic to the world."

"You did it first," she says, and, okay, it's not exactly the most mature argument. Whatever. He totally started it.

"Yeah," he says. "And I tried to stop you from making the same mistake that I did."

"I was just trying to save Professor Crumbs," she says. Which will teach her to do anything nice for someone else, like, ever again.

"Yeah, well, Professor Crumbs didn't need saving, did he?"

"And how was I supposed to know that?"

"We tried to tell you -"

"To do nothing?" He doesn't have anything to say to that, so she continues, "Besides, we would have been fine if you hadn't gone and confessed everything."

"That wasn't me," he says. And then, because he must realise how stupid that sounds, "It was lawyer me."

"Yeah, well lawyer you and regular you should have a lot of fun together while you still can. Before Max wins the wizard competition and we lose our powers forever."

That pretty much shuts him up. Still, it doesn't exactly feel good.

"Alex?" their mom calls from inside. "Justin? What are two still doing out there?"

"Nothing," Alex yells back, and tries to push past Justin, but he grabs her wrist to stop her.

"Alex," he says, and he isn't yelling any more. Which is probably a good thing. She really hopes nobody was walking down the street in the past five minutes, otherwise they'll probably be in trouble all over again. Which is exactly what she doesn't need. "We'll fix this. I promise."

She doesn't answer him, and when he lets go, she brushes past him into the sub station and runs upstairs without another word.

Usually, she'd believe him. She trusts Justin to be able to fix anything, even if she'd never tell him that. But this is just -

She really doesn't think this one can be fixed.

-

It takes about a week for Alex to decide that Max absolutely _cannot_ be allowed to win the family wizard competition.

In that week, he:

Turns everything in the fridge into pudding. (Their dad doesn't mind that one so much, but their mom is livid, and apparently Justin was keeping some sort of science experiment in there? So, it doesn't exactly go down well when Max eats it.)

Makes the loft float. ( _Stuff that flies is cool,_ is his explanation. _Way cooler than stuff that doesn't fly. Except for -_ )

Turns the sub shop into a submarine. ( _\- stuff that's underwater. Stuff that's underwater is_ really _cool._ )

Complete with flying sharks outside. ( _Just like land sharks,_ when she looks puzzled. _But with wings._ )

Uses Harper's favourite outfits to construct an elaborate flying shark saddle. (That one isn't done with magic, granted, but Harper's still _mad._ )

Vomits up Justin's science experiment. (Apparently, even when it's turned into pudding, it's still a bunch of gross chemicals. And it doesn't help that he's been riding around on a shark _that's trying to eat them_ for the past hour and a half.)

Feeds all of the ham to sharks. (Which is when their dad - finally - begs Justin to please put everything back the way it used to be.)

Turns Justin's favourite Captain Jim Bob Sherwood "collectible action figure" - whatever, they're totally toys - into shark bait. ( _I kept hoping he'd come back._ Max actually looks really sad, and Alex almost feels bad for him, until he -)

Turns Mason back into a wolf. (That one's really the last straw. For Alex, anyway. She's pretty sure their dad snapped way back after the ham incident.)

"You can't just go turning people's boyfriends into wolves," she says, and Max almost looks guilty. She can't believe she ever felt sorry for him losing his shark. This is way worse.

"I liked him better as a wolf," Max says, and shrugs as if that makes everything okay.

Justin can't undo the spell. Alex can't undo the spell. Max can't undo the spell, because he's forgotten how he did it in the first place, and Alex nearly snaps his wand. Or his neck.

"You'll get him back eventually," Justin says. "You lost him before, right? But then you found him again."

Easy for him to say. He's probably still expecting _Juliet_ to come back, like that's ever going to happen. They should both just face it: They're never, ever going to be happy.

"I'm going to kill him," she says. And then, "No. You know what? I'm going to beat him."

"Like, with a baseball bat?"

Tempting, but -

"In the family wizard competition," she says. "You told me we'd find a way to fix this, right? So let's fix it."

"Alex," Justin says, like he's about to explain why it won't just be that easy. Which she so doesn't want to hear right now. So she stares at him, instead, until he changes his mind. "All right. We'll fix it."

Damn straight. The wizarding world can thank them later.

-

"Do you even know where we're going?"

"Of course I know where we're going," Justin says, but then he stops, turns around, and eventually heads down a side corridor. Which turns out to be more a crack in the wall than an actual hallway.

So, that would be a no.

"Seriously, Justin," Alex says. And he's the one who's supposed to be good with directions. "We've been wandering around here for, like, an hour."

"Yeah, well, that's just because this place is really big."

"There are elevators that go to every single room in the building."

If you know where to tell them to go. Which they obviously don't.

"Just because I'm being thorough -"

"You mean lost."

He ignores that, but he can't hide his expression a few minutes later, when he has to turn around. Again.

"Wow, yeah, I take it back," she says. "You obviously know exactly where we're going."

"At least we're getting closer."

How would he even know that? But okay, they've probably already eliminated, like, half the rooms here, so.

"Why don't we just ask someone?" she asks. Because, come on, her legs are not getting any less tired here. "Or, hey, we could just check this thing."

"Alex, I really don't think that's -"

And then Justin actually turns around to look at it, and, yeah, she told him so.

"Helpful," he finishes. "All right, so all we have to do to find the Wizard Family Competition Commissioner's Office is go up one floor, then take a left, spin around three times, walk down the corridor, and go through the fifth door on the left, take two and a half steps, turn around, and we'll be there. Easy."

The scariest thing? He says that like he actually means it.

"Sure," she agrees halfheartedly. "Easy."

Up one floor. Left. Spin around three times. Down the corridor.

"Wait," Justin says once they get there, and Alex waits. _Wow,_ that's a lot of doors. "Was it the fifth door on the left, or on the right?"

Oh, he has got to be kidding her.

"Or was it the sixth door on the left? Wait, maybe -"

Yeah, she so does not have time for this. At this rate, by the time they actually get anywhere, the wizard competition will already be over.

"Why don't we just pick one?" she asks, and before Justin can object, she opens the nearest door and walks in. She can still hear him spluttering in the hallway, but a few seconds later he follows her in, because that's what he does.

"See?" she asks. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"We're also in completely the wrong room," he points out, and she shrugs. At least they're in _a_ room, which is further than Justin got them. "Alex, I really think we should get out of here."

"In a sec," she says, taking a few careful steps forward. The light's bright enough that she should be able to see clearly - actually, it should probably be blinding her or whatever - but she can't. She can barely see her feet in front of her, and pretty much the only other thing she can see, apart from Justin, is some glowy, spinny thing in the middle of the room. (Or, well, she's guessing it's the middle. She can't actually see the walls, either.) "I want to see what this does."

"Alex," Justin says, and she kind of expected his voice to be faint, too, but it's almost deafening. "That's really not a good idea."

She's not stupid; she's pretty much figured that one out for herself. But since when has she only done things that seem like good ideas?

"I'm not going to touch it," she says, and that's almost the truth. For now. "Relax."

"How am I supposed to relax?" he demands. "We don't know where we are, we have no idea what that thing does, and we're almost certainly not supposed to be here."

"Exactly," she says. Seriously, does he not get the concept of having fun, like, at all? And then, when he still hesitates, "Would you just get up here? It's not going to bite us. Probably."

Justin mutters something that's probably supposed to be under his breath, but _really_ isn't (and, wow, she didn't even know he knew half those words; she's not quite sure whether to be offended or just kind of impressed), but he comes up to stand beside her anyway, and then freezes.

"Justin?" she asks. Great, now he's being weird. Or, weirder.

"Shh," he says, waving her off, and she's about to start pestering him, pretty much just for the hell of it, when she hears it, too. Of course, she's not exactly sure what 'it' is, except for a bunch of weird beeps and ... even longer beeps, but it seems to mean something to Justin, so.

"What is it?" she asks. Whispers, really, except it still comes out almost like yelling. The acoustics in here are seriously amazing.

"Shh," he says again. And then he goes seriously pale, and even stiffer than usual. "Alex, we have to get out of here."

"What?" she asks, but he's already pushing her; probably towards the door, but she can't really see far enough to tell.

"Now," he says, and he's being, like, seriously weird, even for Justin, but he sounds like he's serious, so, whatever. She'll go along with it. But he'd better have a good explanation for all this shoving.

Eventually, they reach the door - or at least _a_ door, and Alex doesn't really care if it's the right one or not - and they stumble through it together, Justin's hand still low on her back. She raises an eyebrow at him, and he glances back, once, at the door they just came through, then grabs her hand and leads her back down the corridor.

(Which at least looks like the same corridor as before, so that's probably a good sign, right?)

"What was that?" she asks, when they finally stop, and he looks all around them, like he's expecting someone to overhear. Which is useless, because there's nobody around, but he still looks - panicked, almost? Freak.

"We should go," he says, and she rolls her eyes, like, has he forgotten why they even came here?

"We still need to see the ... whatever family something or other." _Duh._

"The Wizard Family Competition Commissioner's Office," he says. Yeah, like she's ever going to remember all that. "And we'll come back, okay? We just need to get home."

Impatiently, Alex tugs her hand out of his grasp. "What are you even talking about? We're almost there, and it's going to take us another hour to get back here again."

"Alex," he says, and he looks like he's going to keep arguing with her, but then he just takes her hand again, and says, "Sorry."

Before she can blink, they're back in the lair, and seriously, she is actually going to kill him for real.

"What the hell was that?" she asks, pulling away from him. "Justin, you can't just -"

"I'm sorry, okay?" he says, and he kind of looks it. Not that she forgives him, or anything. She's still exhausted from all that walking, and now they didn't even get anywhere. "But this is important."

"What's important?" she asks, and if he says anything about robots, she swears -

"I think we're under threat from an alien invasion."

Okay, that's worse.

"Seriously?" she asks, and she can't even muster up the energy to get mad - oh, no, wait, there it is. Good. "Justin, we've been over this. There were no aliens. It was all just part of the stupid test Professor Crumbs made up to trick us into revealing magic and losing our powers and then our boyfriends are turned into wolves and Max is going to win the wizard competition and -"

"Alex," Justin says, and she kind of snaps out of it. A little, anyway. She's still definitely mad, but she's not quite sure who it's at, any more. "I know that, okay?"

"So why -"

"Because these are real aliens, this time."

"Justin."

"No, I'm serious. That room we were in, all those sounds? It was picking up a genuine alien transmission."

"Let me guess," she says. "A battle call?"

"Exactly!"

"Oh my god, you have to give this up. Aliens are not coming to destroy us, okay?"

"Oh, yeah? And how do you know that?"

"Because it's ridiculous."

Justin lets out a sigh that sounds more like a groan. "Why does everyone think an alien attack is so ridiculous? We've met aliens before."

Oh, hey. _Right._

"And they were hardly a threat," she points out. Unless you're a milkshake, in which case, watch out!

"At least they were real."

"Which doesn't mean they're coming back."

"What about the transmission I heard?"

"You mean, in the alien language you made up?"

"That wasn't in the language I made up," he says. "It was Morse code."

"Which is different how"

"Um, maybe because it's a real language?"

"Yeah," she says. "Okay. A real language."

"It is!"

"Justin, it was just a bunch of beeping."

"That's what Morse code is," he says. Pfft, yeah. Sure. Like anybody actually speaks a language that sounds like that. "You know what? I really don't have time to talk to you about this right now. I have an alien attack to prepare for."

"Yeah," she says. "Good luck with that."

It's fine with her. She doesn't need Justin, anyway. She can totally fix this thing on her own. Or, you know, she could just go do stupid stuff with magic while she still has it.

Just in case she does need Justin, after all.

-

It's not like she wants to go in Justin's room. Honestly. It's just that Harper's looking for Zeke, and Alex is pretty sure she saw them come up here, and - whatever, okay? She's not the one who's on trial any more.

"Hey, are you -"

She pauses as soon as she opens the door, and considers turning around, just pretending she didn't see anything. She rolls her eyes and takes a step forward, instead, because _someone_ has to talk them out of this.

"You've got to be kidding me," she says, and Justin looks a little bit guilty before he can remember to try not to.

"Alex," he says evenly. "What are you doing here?"

She ignores the question. "Please tell me you're not doing what I think you're doing."

"If you think we're building an awesome intergalactic communications array, sorry, but we can't," Zeke says. "Because that's exactly what we're doing."

Yeah, she thought so. As long as all those words mean something about aliens, anyway.

"Justin."

"I'm not doing anything that's against the rules," he says, but defensively, as if he's worried he might be.

"Whatever," she says. "Zeke, Harper's looking for you."

Zeke jumps up straight away, and he's out of the room almost before she's finished speaking. That boy is _whipped_.

"Seriously?" she asks, once it's just her and Justin. "I thought we were going to let this go."

Justin looks confused. "That's not what I said at all."

Oh, right. It's just what she imagined him saying when she rewrote the conversation in her head. Seriously, the conversations in her head are always way better than the real thing.

"Yeah, well you never said you were going to drag other people into it," she says. "Doesn't that violate the whole 'not revealing magic to mortals' thing?"

"I'm not revealing magic to Zeke." There's a sour twist to his mouth, like he still hasn't forgotten the whole trial thing, and, well, neither has she. "He just thinks we're building a radio capable of picking up alien transmissions from space."

"So what are you doing?"

He hesitates for a second, and then says, "We're building a radio capable of picking up alien transmissions from space."

"And the difference is?"

"Zeke doesn't know it's real."

Right. He just thinks it's real, which is a whole other problem that has nothing to do with her.

"Justin," Alex says, and moves forward again, until she's standing right in front of the radio whatever device. "You have to forget about this stupid alien thing."

"It isn't stupid," he says. "And it's not just my alien thing. They're coming."

"Ugh! I can't believe I'm about to say this, but you're going to get us in trouble. Again."

Justin looks at her steadily. "We're already in trouble," he says. "It can't really get much worse, can it? Besides, you're not involved in this. If anyone gets in trouble, it'll just be me."

Yeah. Oddly, that doesn't actually make her feel any better.

"What if they take away your powers?" she asks, and he stops, suddenly, his mouth hanging open. Like he hadn't even considered that, which can't be true, because Justin always considers everything. "I'm serious, Justin."

"They won't," he says, and then he's on his feet, his arms around her, and she doesn't even bother struggling. When he holds her like this, she can almost believe him. "Alex, I promise. It's going to be okay."

She can barely even hear him, because he's mostly speaking into her hair, but it's still comforting.

And then the door swings open behind them, and she pulls back, putting as much distance between her and Justin as possible. Not because they were doing anything wrong, she just - doesn't want people to see her like this. Actually getting along with him.

"I'm back," Zeke announces, and Alex is almost surprised, until she turns around and sees Harper right behind him. "And I brought my girlfriend."

He says the word like it's still a novelty, which - yeah, okay, that doesn't surprise her at all.

Zeke looks from Justin to Alex and back again, and grins. "Excellent," he says. "So now we've got four extra hands, this is going to go, like, twice as fast. You're staying, right, Alex?"

Her first instinct is to say no, of course she's not staying, she doesn't want to be sucked into a pit of total geekdom like everyone else here (sorry, Harper), but then she catches Justin's eye, and, well. He's wrong about one thing (or, well, two things, if you count the whole stupid 'aliens are coming' theory). He's not in this alone.

"Whatever," she says. "This might actually be funny."

Justin shoots her a look like he's trying to be offended, but it just comes out mostly grateful.

"Awesome," Zeke says. "Justin, what did you say the coordinates were, again?"

Justin rattles off a bunch of numbers that don't make any sense, and Zeke starts fiddling with the radio thing while Harper looks on fondly and Alex pretty much tries to stay out of the way. She wants to help and everything - well, kind of, though mostly she's just thinking about how she can destroy this later and make it look like an accident - but there's no way she's actually, like, touching that thing.

"Thanks," Justin says later, so low Zeke and Harper probably can't hear. She freezes for a second, and then shrugs, trying to act like she's not surprised.

"Whatever," she says. "We're in this together."

Seriously, though, he'd better be right about not getting into trouble for this.

-

She's watching television when it happens.

(Because, seriously, they can't expect her to, like, actually work on this every day, can they? Or, well, they probably can, but they've met her, so they really shouldn't.)

"Alex," Justin says, and he's practically running down the stairs, taking them three at a time. She turns around to watch, mostly because she really doesn't want to miss it if he falls flat on his face. "We need to - oh, hey, Harper."

He stops suddenly, doing this thing with his eyebrows that Alex has absolutely no idea what it means.

(Okay, so, that's a lie. She knows exactly what he wants, but she likes watching him sweat.)

"Alex," he says, under his breath like it's supposed to be a secret, even though Harper is sitting right there. "Will you talk to me in the kitchen?"

"About what?" she asks, and his face goes bright red like he's trying not to scream. Man, he is so easy.

"About, um." Yeah, he's got nothing. "Just come on, will you?"

"Fine," Alex says, and once they're in the kitchen - which is, like, all of three feet away, it's not like Harper couldn't hear them if she tried - she asks, "Okay, what is it?"

Before Justin can answer, though, Zeke comes bounding down the stairs, glances over at them, and grins.

"Did Justin tell you already?" he asks. "Aw, man, I totally wanted to be here for that."

"Actually," Justin starts, obviously trying to cut him off, but Harper's too quick for him.

"Tell us what?" she asks.

"We did it," he says, like he's announcing that they created world peace or something instead of built a stupid radio. "We finished the transmitter."

"Great," Alex says. "Maybe now I can listen to more than the the four radio stations dad's old radio picks up."

"Yeah you can," Zeke says. "If you like radio stations from Mars."

Harper looks at him in the same way that Alex swears that she looks at Justin sometimes. (Basically, like he's being a huge dork.) "What are you talking about, sweetie?"

"We actually did it," Zeke says. "We picked up an alien transmission. It works."

Alex glances over at Justin, like, _what kind of community radio did you pick up that sounds like it could be aliens?_ But Justin looks back at her, his eyes wide and kind of panicked, like -

Well, like they picked up an actual alien transmission.

Which totally can't be true.

Probably.

"What, um, what are are you talking about?" she asks, leaning against the counter. She's going for casual, but judging from Justin's expression, she isn't really pulling it off.

Zeke just smiles even wider. "Come on, we'll show you."

That really can't be a good idea - even if there's the tiniest possibility it's an actual alien transmission, there's no way Zeke, or even Harper, should be listening to it - but she can't really think of a good reason to stop them, so she just ends up following them upstairs, Justin right behind her.

"This is exciting," Harper murmurs. "Isn't it exciting, Alex?"

Yeah, not so much. Either it's a fake, in which case they've wasted the better part of a week and she's going to be stuck here listening to some fake alien sounds -

Or it's real, and they're all in big trouble.

At first, when Zeke flicks the switch, there's nothing, and she's about to let out a relieved breath. And then she hears it - faintly, almost like there's nothing there at all, which probably explains the weird sound effect in that room where they found the first one - and she's not so relieved, after all.

It sounds exactly like the first transmission. Still just a bunch of useless beeps, but somehow they don't seem so random any more.

"Is that Morse code?" Harper asks.

"Seriously, Harper, not you, too," Alex says. "It's just beeping."

"She doesn't believe it's a real thing," Justin translates.

"Actually," Zeke says, "Morse code was invented in the 1800's by Samuel F. B. Morse. It was used extensively in World War Two by pilots and the navy, and is still used by -"

She pretty much tunes him out after that, because all that stuff means basically nothing to her. (Except the stuff about war. That probably isn't good. But it might just be a coincidence, right?)

"What's it saying?" Harper asks, and before Zeke can answer, Alex jumps in to stop him, in pretty much the only way she can think of.

She trips, and knocks the radio over. She only meant to turn it off, but she kind of miscalculates a little and goes sprawling on top of it, and as she hits the floor, she hears the distinctive crunch of something breaking. Badly.

Justin helps her up, even though she's pretty sure he's just checking to make sure it's really off. Which he really doesn't need to do; the thing is definitely dead.

"Oh no!" Zeke wails, actually falling to his knees and grabbing at his hair. Harper pats his back soothingly, and Alex is pretty sure that if that were her boyfriend, she'd be running for the hills. "Our only contact with the aliens. We'll never be able to send them a message now."

Yeah, that - definitely wouldn't have been a good idea.

"It'll be all right," Justin says, but he looks way more relieved than upset. Luckily, Zeke isn't actually looking at him, instead trying to scrape together fragments of the radio. "Harper, why don't you take Zeke home, and I'll stay here and try to fix it."

"Really?" Zeke asks. "You think you can do it?"

"Absolutely," Justin says, and shakes his head at Alex, _no._

Whew.

Once they're gone, Justin closes the door - and locks it, just in case - and turns to face Alex.

"Thank you," he says. "For destroying it, I mean."

It looks like it kills him to say, and that makes her almost feel bad about it; he worked really hard on it, after all. But she doesn't regret doing it.

"Nothing to it," she says. "So."

She really doesn't want to ask, _was it really aliens?_ That feels a bit too much like admitting she believes him.

Justin waits, eyebrow raised. Damn him. Of course he knows what she's thinking, and of course he isn't going to make it easy on her.

"What did it say?" she asks finally.

He smiles, but only for a moment, and she's going to take that as a bad sign.

"Aliens are coming," he says, and before she can say anything, "Alex, I swear it's true. You have to believe me."

Ugh, whatever. But if he's pranking her, she's going to get him back so hard.

"I believe you," she says.

Justin looks surprised, but he doesn't take the opportunity to gloat. Which is a good thing, because then she'd probably have to kill him, and she really doesn't think she'd be able to save the world all by herself.

"So, what do we do?"

He looks almost as surprised at that, but he shouldn't be. When it comes down to it, he's the one who always knows what to do. It's just - he's Justin, it's what he does.

"Well," he says, "we could take it to the wizard council -"

Ugh, pass.

"- or to Professor Crumbs."

Definite pass. A month ago, she probably would have said they should do that, but not any more.

"Or we could tell mom and dad."

"Yeah, because I'm sure that will go down so well. Just tell them we broke into some room we shouldn't have -"

"You broke into some room you shouldn't have."

"- and found a secret alien language -"

"It's Morse code."

"- and you let Zeke help you build a radio and listen to what they're saying, oh, and now aliens are on their way to destroy the world, and this time they probably won't just go away if we give them a milkshake. Yep, that sounds like a great plan."

"Okay," he says. "So, we don't tell mom and dad."

Sounds good.

"We can't tell anybody in the wizarding world, because we're not supposed to know about it, and we can't tell anybody in the mortal world because they won't believe us."

Right, and because Alex is sick of secret government facilities, even if they are fake.

"So basically, we can't tell anyone," she says. "How long do we have until the aliens get here?"

"I don't know exactly," Justin says. "But they'll be here soon."

"Soon, as in next year?"

"Soon, as in a few days."

Right. Of course.

And then there's a flash of white light as everything around them disappears.

-

"Or," Justin says, "it could be sooner than that."

Alex glares at Justin, like, _no kidding_. Everything around them is still way too bright, but the light's faded enough that she can actually see now, and what she sees isn't good.

White light. White walls, all curving inward, spiralling off into the distance. Machines all around them, beeping that stupid alien language, glowing red and green and blue and flickering with a weird sort of static.

And aliens. Lots of them.

So, she does what any normal person would do under the circumstances. She freezes.

". ..._ . _.   _ .... ___ .._ __. ....   _.__ ___ .._ .____. ._. .   .._. ._. ___ __.. . _.   __..__   ..   _._. ._ _.   ... _ .. ._.. ._..   ... . .   _.__ ___ .._"

So, is that just, like, alien for, _nope, nothing to see here, this room is completely empty_?

".. _.. . _. _ .. .._. _.__   _.__ ___ .._ ._. ... . ._.. ..._ . ...   __..__   .__ .. __.. ._ ._. _.. ..."

"We come in peace," Justin says, even though they didn't really come so much as they were beamed aboard what she's guessing is an alien ship without even asking their permission. Which is pretty rude, actually.

".__ .   _.. ___   _. ___ _"

"What did they say?" she asks. Seriously, they can build spaceships but they can't learn to speak English?

"Um," Justin says. "Nothing good."

Oh.

"Can you ask them to let us go?"

Instead of saying something, Justin starts tapping on one of the machines, and Alex rolls her eyes. This is so not the time for daydreaming.

"Justin -"

"I'm asking."

Oh. So that's what that is.

"_. ___"

Justin shakes his head. Well, it was a long shot, anyway.

"What do they want?" she asks.

"If you could be quiet for a minute, I could ask them."

"What, so now this is my fault?" This is just great. They've been beamed on board some freaky alien ship surrounded by freaky aliens who keep beeping at them like it's some kind of real language, and now Justin is blaming her for this? "I'm not the one who built that stupid radio that probably led them straight to us."

"I didn't say it was your fault."

"No, it's yours."

"Alex -"

"_ ._ _._ .   .._ ...   _ ___   _.__ ___ .._ ._.   ._.. . ._ _.. . ._."

Ugh, what now? Can't these aliens see they're trying to have a conversation here?

"Alex," Justin says. "Maybe this isn't exactly the best time."

"No, really?"

"Just let me talk to them," he says. "Maybe I can get them to let us go."

Yeah, Alex wouldn't count on it. Not that she can really read alien facial expressions - at least, she's assuming those things are their faces - but they don't exactly look friendly to her. So while Justin starts tapping again, she reaches down slowly for her wand, trying to make it look like she just has an itchy leg. Not that that probably means anything to the aliens, who either have no legs or way too many. Too many noses, too. And eyes. And -

Tentacles. Gross.

"Justin?" she asks. A couple more inches and she'll have it.

"They intercepted us intercepting their communication," he says, and at her blank look, "they found out we were listening to their radio signal."

Right. That's bad. Probably. Unless they're getting some kind of reward?

"They're going to execute us unless we do exactly what they say."

Or not.

"Then I guess there's only one thing to do," she says, as her hand finally closes around her wand. She holds onto Justin with the other hand, closes her eyes, and waves her wand.

"Get the hell out of here."

-

There's chaos as soon as they flash into the lair. Their mom comes running in first, wielding a mop that probably should have been replaced around the time Max was born, and then their dad, cowering behind her, holding - a spatula? (And not even a metal one, like, one of those plastic ones that apparently melts if you leave it lying around on the hot plate. Whatever, how was she supposed to know?)

"Whoa," Justin says, throwing up his hands, one of which is still holding Alex's. "It's just us! Don't attack."

A second later, their parents lower their, um, weapons. And then Max rushes in, holding what's either a dead fish or a really large piece of mold from his room.

"Max!" their dad says. "It's just Justin and Alex. Don't attack them."

"Attack?" Max says. "I was just making lunch."

So - probably a fish, then?

(Wait, no. Alex isn't going to take that bet, even with herself.)

"Justin," their dad says, ignoring Max. Probably for the best. "Alex. Where were you?"

"We, um -" Justin starts, and Alex cuts him off with, "It's a long story."

"Okay," their dad says slowly. "We'll talk about that later. But for now, I'm just glad that you're back. You guys don't know what's been going on here."

"Oh," Justin says, "I think we have a pretty good idea."

"Aliens have landed," Max says, leaning forward like it's a big secret.

Their mom and dad look at each other, and shrug. "It's true," their dad says, like they can't be expected to take Max's word for it. Which, in any other situation, they probably wouldn't. "Aliens really have landed."

"Really," Justin says, faking shock. Not very convincingly either. "That is completely new information."

"Yeah," Alex says, because, hey, she might as well go with it. "I did not know that."

Their mom and dad look at each other again, and this time, the look they share is way too familiar. It's their _we know Alex is hiding something_ look.

Damn it.

"Yeah," their dad says. "This might be a good time to start telling us where you've been all afternoon."

All afternoon? That can't be right; they were on the alien ship for maybe twenty minutes, tops. She tries to catch Justin's eye, but he's staring at their dad, looking as confused as she feels, and if even Justin can't figure this out, she's probably got no hope.

"Um," she says. A good lie to explain why they weren't here. She can do that.

"We were kidnapped by aliens," Justin says.

And then their parents burst out laughing.

"Really," their mom says. "Kidnapped by aliens."

"It's true!" he protests.

"No offense, Justin," their dad says, "but why would aliens want to kidnap you? Or your sister?"

Yeah, that part's probably the kicker.

"Look, Justin," their mom says. "Alex. If you guys were hiding under your beds, it's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Really?" their dad asks.

"They're kids, Jerry. It's okay for them. You should be ashamed of it."

"Aliens, Theresa. How am I supposed to fight aliens?"

"You could start by not saying, 'here she is, take her, I'm too young to die!'"

"Well, I am."

"I'm younger than you are!"

"All right," Alex interrupts, because this could go on for a while. "Will somebody please fill us in on what's happening here?"

"I don't know what happened," their dad says. "One minute I was sitting on the couch -"

"Snoring on the couch."

He shoots a look at their mom, but continues. "And the next minute, there were all these flashes of light outside and big alien ships and newscasts -"

"There were newscasts?" Justin asks, at the same time as Alex asks, "You watched the news?"

"It was on every channel," their dad says, before admitting, "I like to watch cartoons while I nap."

Ah, okay. She's caught up now.

"Is it bad?" Justin asks, and for, like, a really long time, nobody answers him. So, yeah, that's probably bad.

"They've taken over the government," their dad says finally. "And most of the media. It's actually pretty entertaining, after a while."

Entertaining. That's just great. They were being threatened with execution while their dad was watching television.

"Yeah," Max says. "It's awesome. They already have mandatory six meals a day. Now, I don't know what mandatory means, but I think it means we get to do it."

"That is pretty cool," their dad says. "I've had three already. And the sub shop has been packed."

Right. Because that's what's important here. Not their freedom or -

Oh, god, she's starting to sound like Justin.

"More food," she says, trying it out. "Excellent."

It doesn't really work. Damn it. She's going to blame this one on Justin - if he was just normal and lazy and didn't care about stuff, she wouldn't have to, either.

"And the dinner rush has barely started," their mom says. "It's like a miracle."

Great, so nobody is on their side.

(And, _ugh._ Now she and Justin have a side? This is worse than she thought.)

"So," she says, "if it's so busy out there, who's serving customers while we're all in here?"

At that, their parents' eyes widen, and they both rush out. Which just leaves Max.

Fortunately, that problem usually solves itself.

"If you'll excuse me," he says, "I have to get ready for my next meal."

And then he waves the fish-or-mold thing. So he really is going to eat it. Wow, her family is so great.

"Good luck with that," she says, and then it's just her and Justin again, and - ugh, she's even pretty sure they're both thinking the same thing. Which has to stop, seriously.

"So," Justin says. "We need to fix this."

Yep, that's what she was afraid of.

"How are we going to do that?" she asks. "Justin, the aliens have taken over, like, the entire world. How are the two of us supposed to be able to fix that?"

"We can't," he says, and she almost thinks he's actually come to his sense until he continues, "so we'll need to get some help. From the wizard world."

"You mean, the same people who took most of our powers and then tried to arrest us?"

"Alex, it's our only option."

Yeah, she's pretty sure it isn't. Like, they could also do nothing, watch whatever television is left, eat until they burst, and gradually give in to their new alien overlords. Granted, none of those are particularly good options, but they're still there.

But - okay, what's the point of doing nothing all day if there isn't even anything good on television?

"Fine," she says, and sighs loudly, just to emphasise that she's doing this against her will. "What do we have to do?"

Obviously, Justin's thought about this; he has the answer all ready. "We have to find Professor Crumbs."

"Professor Crumbs, seriously? The guy who gave us the world's worst pop quiz? That guy?"

"Alex -"

Yeah, she knows. It's their only option.

"Okay," she says. At least they know where to find him, which means they probably won't have to wander around for another hour just to get where they're going. "Let's go see Professor Crumbs."

And they're off to see the wizard.

-

This time, they ask for directions.

"We're here to see Professor Crumbs," Justin says, taking a deep breath like he's about to launch into an explanation about the whole alien conspiracy right there in the foyer. But the wizard on the front desk (junior wizard, obviously; his beard hasn't even grown in yet, and it reminds her of that time Justin tried to grow a mustache - not a good look, by the way) just waves them in.

"Professor Crumbs," he says. "Wizard court."

He's eating a sandwich. And the desk is littered with empty containers, so obviously it's not his first.

"Justin," Alex says, grabbing his hand to stop him. "I have a bad feeling about this."

Justin looks confused, but then he glances at the junior wizard, stiffens a little when he sees the wrappers, and looks back at her.

He looks about as freaked out as she feels, but he shrugs. "Wizards eat a lot."

"Yeah," she says. "What's up with that?"

"Conservation of energy," he says. "See, when wizards do magic -"

"Okay, forget I asked," she says. She is so not in the mood for a lecture on how magic works right now. Or ever, really. "Can we just find Professor Crumbs and get out of here? This place creeps me out."

It's not just the food, or the stupid robes, or the constant reminder of the family wizard competition. For some reason, she just gets nervous when she's around a lot of authority figures.

"Fine," he says. "The wizard court is this way."

She doesn't recognise the door from the outside - it's just a door, why would she? - but as soon as Justin opens it, she sucks in a breath.

Wizard court. This she remembers.

It looks different than it did last time - the benches are gone, and there's no endless row of judges sitting there looking disapproving - but that doesn't make her feel a lot better. Not when this was where she and Justin lost their standing in the family wizard competition, where Professor Crumbs and all those stupid judges might as well have just given Max their powers and been done with it; not when it's one of the last places she ever saw Mason before Max turned him back into a wolf.

If they end up surviving this alien attack, she is so going to kick Max's ass in the wizard competition, reduced standing or no.

It doesn't take long to spot Professor Crumbs - a 900 year old wizard wearing a neon purple tracksuit is kind of hard to miss - but when Justin starts forward, Alex grabs his arm.

The wizard court should be full of - well, wizards playing court games. Tennis, basketball ... other sports. (Look, she's not exactly an expert on physical activity, okay?) Instead, it's almost empty.

And all the wizards here are eating.

"The aliens have taken over the wizard world," Justin whispers, and Alex nods. Yeah, she pretty much got that already. "Okay, we have to -"

"Justin," Professor Crumbs says, before Justin can finish. "Alex. What can I do for you?"

"Um," Justin says. Suddenly, he doesn't look so sure anymore, and Alex squeezes his arm; half in support, half as a warning that they need to get out of here, _now_. "We were just. Um."

"Here for the feast?" Professor Crumbs asks.

"The feast," she says. "Yes. That's why we're here."

She takes a step back, and Justin does the same.

"Except," she says, "we can't stay. Because we forgot our -"

"Food," Justin says.

"Sandwiches."

"And pizza."

"Carrot sticks."

Alex shoots Justin a look - _carrot sticks_ , seriously? - but Professor Crumbs doesn't seem to notice.

"Oh, yes," he says. "Can't forget the food. Wouldn't be a feast without it."

Right. So they'll just be going.

She snags a piece of cake off one of the tables in the corner as they leave, just in case. If it turns out the aliens are actually enforcing that stupid rule, she's not going to get in trouble _and_ miss out on cake.

"Alex," Justin says, like stealing cake is a crime now, and then, "whatever. Let's get out of here."

Yeah, that would be a good idea.

So would stopping the aliens. Like, now.

"Justin," she says, once they're back outside. "This bad."

"I know," he says. He turns to face her, taking both her hands, and it's oddly comforting. "But don't worry. We can still do this."

"How?" she asks. "Justin, nobody's going to help us."

He shrugs. "Then we're just going to have to do it by ourselves."

Yeah, that's what she was worried about.

-

"So," Justin says, once they're back at home. "We need a plan."

"Yeah," Alex says. "My plan is to let you do all the planning."

"Alex," he says, and she sighs. See, this is why she never volunteers for stuff. People always insist on making her do actual work.

"Fine," she says. "My plan is that you do research and find a spell to make the aliens go away, and I sit here and flip through my magazines."

"Magic isn't going to fix this," he says, snatching the magazine she picks up out of her hands. Hey, she was pretending to read that! "We can't just use a spell and fix everything that's gone wrong."

"Why not?" she asks. "I do, and it works out great for me."

"No, it doesn't. It works out terribly for you, and then I have to come along and fix it."

She shrugs. Same difference.

"There are too many of them to just use magic," he says. "We're going to need another solution."

"Well, then, I'm out of ideas. Your turn."

"We're going to have to assemble the Alien Language League."

"Yeah, okay, not your turn," she says, sitting up. "That's a terrible idea."

"Do you have a better one?"

Of course she doesn't have a better idea. Her idea is to throw magic at stuff and wait for Justin to fix it, which probably isn't going to work this time.

"We're already in trouble for exposing magic," she points out.

"Exactly," he says. "What more can they do?"

She raises an eyebrow at him, and waits.

"Okay," he says. "They could take away our wizard world privileges. Or put us in wizard jail. Or they could take away our powers completely."

Sure, totally no big deal.

"And if we don't manage to defeat the aliens," he says, "it won't matter anyway. We might as well be in wizard jail with no powers."

Okay, fine. They need help. But, seriously, the Alien Language League?

"We won't tell them we're wizards," he says. "And I'm pretty sure the secret about the aliens is already out of the bag."

"When this backfires," she says, because it's totally not a question of if, "I'm going to blame you."

"Deal."

"Hey, cool," Max says from the doorway. "Are you guys playing cards?"

"What?" she asks.

He shrugs. "You just told Justin to deal."

"Max," Alex starts to explain, and then turns to look at Justin. The Alien Language League doesn't have to be their only option. Granted, Max isn't exactly a _great_ option, but -

"Can I play?" Max asks. "I'm kind of sick of eating. I've already thrown up, like, twice today."

Ew. Okay, that's way too much information. Maybe asking Max for help really is a terrible idea, after all.

But it does give her an idea.

"Sick of eating," she says, and ignores Justin's pointed looks, like he already knows where she's going with this. Hey, he's the one who wanted to bring other people in on this. "Wow, Max. It sounds like maybe those aliens aren't so great after all."

Max shrugs, settling down on the other side of the couch. "I guess. Some of them have, like, seventeen noses, though."

Yeah, she knows.

"That's pretty cool," he continues. "Do you know how much stuff I could smell if I had seventeen noses? It'd be totally awesome and gross. Hey, do you think maybe they'd give me some extra noses if I asked them?"

"I don't think so, Max," Justin says, and Alex jumps in.

"Yeah," she agrees. "I hear they're really stingy with that sort of stuff. Like, they can have seventeen noses each, but one is good enough for us? What's that about?"

It sounds totally ridiculous, but Max seems to be buying into it, which - well, it makes perfect sense, actually.

"I know right?" Max says.

"And you know what else?" she asks, hoping she's not going overboard. It's hard to predict how Max will react to stuff, sometimes. "Their spaceships spin."

"Spinning," Max says. "I hate spinning."

"I know, Max," she says, moving closer to put a comforting arm around his shoulders. "I know."

"Man, those aliens suck."

"Exactly," she says. "So, do you want to help us destroy them?"

Justin is standing beside them, waving his arms over his head like he's trying to warn a bus against going over a cliff. Which, she really doesn't know why he would, it's always hilarious when that happens in the movies. Anyway, she's been ignoring Justin for pretty much her whole life, it isn't hard to keep doing it now.

"Destroy them," Max repeats, like he's thinking about it. "Would I still get to eat six meals a day?"

"I thought you were sick of -" Justin starts, but Alex cuts him off.

"Of course you would," she says. "You can even eat seven, if you want."

"Seven," Max says. And then, after way too long a pause (even Alex can do that kind of math), "Seven is more than six. Okay, I'm in."

"Great," she says, and beams at Justin, because she totally won that one. "So, shall we?"

After a pause, like he wants to lecture her but he can't really think of a good reason to, Justin nods. "I'll call the Alien Language League."

"And I," she says, "am going to sit here and flip through my magazine."

-

It's not like Alex didn't already know that members of the Alien Language League don't have lives. (Like, they're members of the Alien Language League. That kind of speaks for itself.) But if she didn't, the fact that they were all at the sub station within fifteen minutes of Justin calling them would been more than enough proof.

"So," Justin says. He's standing in front of the counter, with the rest of the geeks assembled around him like he's their king, which she supposes he kind of is. He sure sounds like he believes it, at least. God help her, she can't believe they're related.

Alex, for her part, is standing about as far away from them as she can and still technically be in the restaurant, leaning against the base of the stairs in case she needs to make a quick getaway.

(Max is still upstairs, apparently trying to see if he can make himself vomit three times in one day, and their parents - well, there was a note on the counter Alex is pretty sure was from them, but she has no idea what the heck an intergalactic subway sandwich party planning committee is, except that it sounds like some freaky alien thing, so really, they could be anywhere.)

"The alien threat has finally landed," Justin continues; slowly, like he's expecting them all to cheer or something. If they do, she's out of here. "The day we have spent so long preparing for is here. We are the only ones who can stop them, or else face total annihilation at the hands of enemy conquerors."

Okay, so. She knows it's all true and everything, but seriously, he's going a little overboard with the whole speech thing. Aliens are here, they're evil, can't they just fight them already and stop being so dramatic about it?

"We are few," he says, "and they are many. And they have alien technology that's far superior to ours, and huge spaceships orbiting above every major capital of the world, and all our governments have already given in -"

She coughs loudly. Seriously, they're trying to get these losers to help, not scare them away. A couple of them are already inching towards the exit, which is, like, half the people here.

"Right," Justin says. "But we've got the element of surprise, and if movies have taught us anything - and I think we can all agree that they have - it's that a small band of teenage geurillas fighting for their nation will always overcome an enemy with superior forces, training, and firepower."

Alex seriously has no idea what gorillas have to do with any of this, but everyone else seems totally into it, so whatever. As long as it doesn't mean they're giving guns to monkeys or something, she's fine with it. (They're just so cute, with their little faces and - whatever, that's not the point right now.)

"And that alien ships are notoriously ill-designed," he says. "So, that's a plus."

All right. Not exactly a rousing speech, but it'll do.

Zeke raises his hand once Justin's finished, and Alex badly wants to mock him - seriously, dude, you're not in school, just call out stuff on top of other people - but she forgets about that when Harper walks in.

"Harper," she calls out, gesturing her over. Finally, something to pay attention to other than Justin's stupid speeches. Even if Harper is wearing - well. "What are you wearing?"

Harper looks down at her clothes, then, and Alex could almost swear she blushes. In the ten years they've known each other, Alex is pretty sure it's the first time Harper's ever been embarrassed about anything she's wearing.

Not that Alex loves the grey on grey on grey look Harper's sporting now, plain shirt and pants without an animal theme or edible part in sight, but, well. Considering some of the things Harper's worn in that past, she doesn't think this is exactly the worst, either.

"Oh," Harper says. "This. Um, it's a long story."

"And this is a long and boring meeting," Alex says. "Continue."

"Well," Harper says, nervously; at least, she keeps smoothing her pants down over her hips, although that could just be because the fabric is horrendous. "I was at a meeting of the junior enforcers."

"The junior what?" Okay, she's already not following, and the story's only started.

"That's what they called us," Harper says, and then she leans forward, whispering like it it's some huge secret. "The aliens."

"The aliens," Alex repeats. And then, "Harper, you're in league with the aliens?"

"No!" Harper says. "Well, not any more. I'm sorry, they got to me. You know I'm a follower."

Yeah, Alex does know that. It usually works out well for her; who else would go along with all of her schemes?

"It's okay, Harper," she says. "We're taking them down."

"Taking who down?" Harper asks. And then, "Wait, Alex, I'm not sure this is a good idea."

"Exactly," Alex says. "It's a great idea."

Harper looks around, as if she still isn't quite convinced, and then her gaze lands on Zeke. Who's asking yet another question. Seriously, what is it with these guys?

"So," Zeke says, "how exactly are we going to take down the aliens?"

Which - okay, so Alex hasn't exactly been paying attention, but she's pretty sure he asked that question already.

"Like this," she says. She pulls her wand out of her boot and waves it at one of the nearby tables, which goes flying end over end until it finally stops, crashing against the far wall. Justin glares at her like she's ruining some big secret or whatever, which, hello, he was the one who said it didn't matter anymore.

Zeke stares at her, his mouth hanging open, and finally asks, "What was that?"

"It was -"

"Alien technology," Justin cuts in, before Alex can finish. Sure, alien technology. They'll go with that.

"Really?" Zeke asks. "Cool. Can I try?"

"Um," Justin says, and Alex rolls her eyes. He really has to get better at lying if they're going to team up on stuff.

"It won't work for you," she says, which Justin still doesn't come up with anything. "It only works for us because -"

"Because we were on the alien ship," Justin finishes smoothly, and she gives him an approving glance. Maybe he doesn't completely suck at this, after all.

"Right," she says. "That's why."

"Oh," Zeke says. He looks disappointed, but like he's buying it. "Okay."

So there. It's no big deal, after all.

"Now that we've got that sorted," Justin says, with a pointed look at Alex. What? She had to get Zeke to stop with the questions somehow, or they'd never get out of here. "Let's go over our plans."

Justin pulls out a roll of plans. Like, actual city plans. And a whiteboard, with schedules and diagrams and everything. Of course.

Still, he's kind of cute when he gets all geeky. Or - not, whatever. But she'll let him finish, if it's that important to him.

"Now," he says, and picks up a pointer, which is actually a whiteboard marker. "Listen closely, because this is what we have to do."

-

"Oh my god, what are you wearing?"

He can't be serious. Black pants, black shirt, black sweater (in summer, seriously), and -

"Is that a walkie talkie? Justin, come on."

"It's for us to communicate with the other teams," Justin says. "Here, I got you one, too."

Oh, great. Yep. That's exactly what Alex needs.

"I'm not wearing that," she says. "You look like you're about to -"

Actually, he looks like he's about to break into the wizard council headquarters.

"You look ridiculous," she finishes.

"I'm blending into the night," he says. "It's called being stealth."

Yeah, she's pretty sure that's not what that means.

"Whatever," she says. If he wants to look like a huge dork, that's his problem, not hers. "Can we just go?"

"Not until you take the walkie talkie," he says, sounding way too smug for a guy wearing his like a fanny pack.

Except, she's pretty sure he's serious. So she's probably not in any position to talk.

"Fine," she says, taking it from him. And then she drops it on the floor. Totally accidentally.

"Alex!"

"Oh no," she says flatly. "It's broken. Come on, can we just go now?"

For a minute, she's almost afraid that he'll have another one somewhere, but then he sighs - like she's being the difficult one, seriously, he's the guy dressed like a cat burglar and wearing a walkie talkie - and opens the portal.

Score one for her.

As soon as they're both through, Justin's walkie talkie crackles, and she hears Zeke's voice. "Apollo, come in Apollo, this is Starbuck."

"Starbuck," she says. "Isn't that a girl?"

"Not in the original series," Justin hisses, and picks up the walkie talkie. "Starbuck, this is Apollo. Reading you loud and clear."

Ugh, code names are so stupid.

"Is Rebel with you?"

Okay, so maybe not that one.

"Rebel is here," Justin confirms. "What's your status?"

"Lemon Meringue and I are ready to move forward. Standing by to receive your orders."

"Lemon Meringue?" Alex says, grabbing the walkie talkie from Justin. "Harper, what are you wearing?"

"You remember this outfit," Harper says. "I made it for when we had that baking sale for the cheer squad."

Oh, right. Alex has tried really hard to block all cheer-related events from her memory.

"You know," Harper continues. "The one you said you'd get your mom to bake a pie for, and then you ate it all, and then you said you'd pay me back, but instead you -"

"Yeah, okay, I've got it," Alex says, and hurriedly hands the walkie talkie back to Justin. See, this is why she does not like these things.

"Lemon Meringue has deferred communications to me." Zeke's voice again. "Where do we stand?"

"We've reached ground zero," Justin says, like, why can't he just say _we're there_? "The others should be checking in soon. Prepare to move forward on my mark."

"Roger, Apollo. Starbuck out."

Who the hell is Roger?

It only takes a couple of minutes after that for everyone else to check in. (And by everyone else, she means, like, three other people. The Alien Language League isn't exactly popular, which, duh.) It's not exactly a long time, except for how they're standing there completely out in the open, and Justin keeps dragging her behind bushes every time somebody walks past. By the time they're ready to move, she's already all sweaty and a little out of breath, and it doesn't help that Justin hasn't moved his arm from around her waist since the first time they had to hide.

Still, she doesn't bother to push him away. Not because she likes having him so close or whatever, obviously, but - well, the fate of the entire world kind of depends on what they're about to do, so maybe she's, you know. Just a tiny bit nervous.

"I still don't understand why we can't just go in there," she says. Partly because, well, she doesn't, and partly to force herself to think about other things.

"We went over this before," he says, which - whatever, that doesn't mean she understands. "Reconnaissance is a crucial part of any mission. We need to find out what we're up against before we go in there wands blazing."

"We know what we're up against," she says. "Aliens, remember?"

He rolls his eyes, like there's more to it than that. It seems pretty straightfoward to her. Aliens bad. Humans good. Humans defeat aliens. Everyone celebrates.

"We need to follow the plan," he says.

"It's your plan."

"So?"

"So," she says, "you made it up. Which means you can change it."

"I can't just -" he stops, and, yeah. Alex thinks he's actually speechless. Score one for her. When he speaks again, his voice is kind of high and squeaky, like he's having trouble getting the words out. It's pretty hilarious. "I can't just change a plan mid-plan. That's -"

"A really great idea?" she tries.

"Madness," he says. "How would everyone know we've changed the plan?"

In answer, she rolls her eyes and gestures to the walkie talkie at his hip.

"Oh," he says. "But - we can't - we have to -"

"Yeah," she says. "That's what I thought."

Feeling a little calmer - she needs action, not stupid plans - she marches up to the front door. Which means Justin has to come with her, since he's still holding onto her. She does take her wand out, just in case; sure, wizards are all old and overfed and pretty much oblivious to anything that isn't deep fried, but maybe she can be careful, just this once. After all, what kind of evil alien overlords let people just walk right into their headquarters?

Apparently, these kind do.

Justin sort of jumps out of the doorway in front of her, wand held ready, like he's going to have to face down a horde of alien attackers right away (which she hopes not, because otherwise they're screwed), but the wizard at the front desk barely even looks up. And he doesn't press a button or yell for help or anything else that would get them into trouble, so. That's probably good?

Except Justin still acts like he's sneaking in, ducking around corners and breaking into one spectacularly bad combat roll that ends up with him flailing all around the floor, his arms somehow trapped behind his head, until Alex finally has to help him up. Seriously, who can't _roll_?

"Justin," she hisses; not because she's trying to be stealth, but mostly because she doesn't really want anybody knowing they're together. "Just - get up, would you? Look around. Nobody's trying to stop us."

As if to prove her point, one of the nearby wizards, with mustard stains all down the front of his beard, waves at them before disappearing down the hallway. It's kind of gross, but whatever, at least it proves she's right.

"I don't understand," Justin says, but at least he's walking normally now. She holds onto his hand, just in case he gets any more genius ideas about how to make them both look ridiculous. "Alex, we're not even supposed to be here. They should be trying to kick us out, or put us in wizard jail, or something." He stops and looks around, as if he's offended. "Does the law mean nothing to these people?"

"Go turn yourself in if you feel that bad about it," she says, only because she's pretty sure he won't. Not that it isn't something Justin would do, because it so is, but because they're on a mission to save the world or whatever, which is pretty much the only thing he'd be willing to break the rules for. "I'll just do this all by myself."

Except if Justin leaves, she's totally going home and waiting for the world to end, but whatever.

"Fine," he says, but he doesn't sound happy about it. Only Justin could possibly be mad that he isn't getting into trouble for doing something wrong. "But when this is all over -"

"You can get your punishment then," she says. "Just leave me out of it."

And he - actually looks happy about that. Whatever, she will never understand him. (Or Max, but that's for a whole other set of reasons.)

Anyway.

"So," she says. "Where do your plans say we're supposed to go?"

"Right," he says. Only, instead of just leading the way, he actually pulls the blueprints out of his pocket. Seriously, this is his idea of stealth?

Before he can get them all the way unrolled, she grabs his wrist, pulling him almost flat against the wall. Unfortunately, it has the side effect of pulling him almost flat against her, which takes her back to the whole flushed thing from before, but it's not really avoidable. Most of the wizards here might be oblivious, but Alex is pretty sure somebody would notice Justin standing in the middle of the hallway looking at a whole roll of plans marked _Alien Invasion Counter-Strategy._

"Okay," he says. "We need to find corridor 2B. It shouldn't be far."

"Fine," she says, following him. "But can we at least move a little faster?" Right now, she's pretty sure a snail could outpace them. A really slow snail. With a limp.

"We have to give the others time to get in place," he says. "This is a coordinated effort."

"Why?" she asks. "We're the only ones in the wizard world. Everyone else is out there somewhere."

She gestures vaguely, even though the non-wizard world isn't really something she can really point to. (Or, well, maybe she could. whatever. Justin's tried a bunch of times to explain to her about the wizard world and the non-wizard world and geography and how they overlap, blah blah blah boring. She never gets past the first sentence.)

"Well," she says. "Except for Max. But he doesn't really count."

Justin nods, like he's agreeing with her. She's still not entirely sure what Max's plan is - Justin had tried, and failed pretty spectacularly, to get him to coordinate with everyone else - but as long as he provides a distraction when they need it, she doesn't really care, either.

"This all has to happen simultaneously," Justin says. And then, at her blank stare, "At the same time. We can't risk the aliens finding out what we're up to before we're finished."

Okay, so that makes sense to her. Kind of.

Which is a scary thought. Maybe she's been hanging out with Justin too long. She's even pretty sure she's starting to enjoy this.

"Fine," she says. "But when can we -"

"Oh," he says, stopping short so she ends up running into him again. Seriously, this is becoming kind of a pattern. "Here it is."

She looks at the door in front of them. "This says Not 2B."

"The other one."

Oh. Next to it.

2B.

"I knew that," she says.

"Okay," he says, looking over at her. "Are you ready?"

"Of course I'm ready."

Which means she mostly is, and it's not like she's going to admit she's a little bit nervous. At least, definitely not to Justin.

"All right. Then let's do this."

 _This_ is not actually all that interesting; reconnaissance, apparently, means sneaking around and not doing stuff and being really boring all the time, which is just typical for a plan Justin made up. Alex almost wishes she'd been listening at the meeting; maybe she could have run some interference on Operation Most Boring Plan Ever. (Okay, so she can't actually remember what it's really called, but that's probably close enough.)

Still, it's better than the aliens' stupid _hey Earthlings, why don't you all sit around and eat while we plan how to kill you?_ plan. But not by much.

"Seriously, this is your entire plan?" she whispers. "I could have come up with this. Hell, I'm pretty sure Max could have come up with this."

Justin gives her a look.

Okay, maybe not Max, but still.

"Here," he says. "I think this is the room we're looking for."

"We passed this room, like, four times already."

"I had to make sure it was unguarded."

Yeah, she's pretty sure once would have been enough for that.

"Whatever," she says. "Can we go in now?"

"I'm still waiting on Zeke to -"

"Apollo, come in Apollo."

Ugh, that stupid walkie talkie again. After all this is over, Alex swears she's going to destroy it.

Or maybe hide one in Justin's room and use it to spy on him. Yeah, that definitely has possibilities.

"This is Apollo," Justin says. "Report."

"Teams Bravo One and Two ready and in position. Lemon Meringue is in stealth mode." And then, as if he's not sure they know what that means (which, to be fair, Alex totally doesn't), "Undercover."

"Roger, T minus five."

"Roger. Over."

"So?" she asks, once Justin puts the stupid thing away.

"Five minutes," he says.

Seriously?

"Justin -"

"Five minutes."

"Just give me the stupid plans," she says. She still doesn't get why they have to wait around, but Justin's got that stupid stubborn look where he clenches his jaw and goes all tense and she knows there's no bodging him, so. She might as well make the best of the situation.

"Why?" he asks; quietly, like he's afraid she's going to do something terrible with them.

It's a fair assumption, really.

"Justin," she says. And then climbs over his legs, reaching past him for the plans, and he releases them before she can tear them away from him. "Thank you."

"You could have just asked."

"I did."

"And then you sat on me."

"Whatever," she says. He doesn't even look happy when she climbs back off him, so it can't have been like he minded that much.

Anyway, she needs to get some distance if she's going to aim right.

"Are you folding those?" he asks. "Alex, that's valuable intel."

She tries to ignore him. "Just go back to your stupid renaissance."

"Reconnaissance."

Yeah, like she cares.

When she throws her new paper plane at him a few minutes later, it flies straight at his head.

"Alex!" he hisses, grabbing it as it rebounds. "This is -"

"A really great shot?"

"Not helping," he says.

"Not helping what?" she asks. "We're not doing anything."

"We're doing -"

"Reconnaissance, whatever. I'm bored."

"So entertain yourself."

She gestures at the paper plane he's still holding. "I was."

"Not like that."

Ugh, _whatever._ "Why don't you entertain me?" she asks, a challenge in her words.

He looks speculative for a moment, and then frowns. "I'm concentrating."

"On doing nothing?"

"On running through our plan."

"Justin, you know that stupid plan off by heart. When are we going to do something? We've been waiting out here for, like, an hour already."

"It's been four minutes," he says, checking his watch. "And forty-nine seconds."

Ugh, whatever. This is _boring_ , is her point.

"And we're about to move in," he says. "In three, two ..."

He doesn't even say _one_ like a normal person; instead, he holds up a finger, and mouths it instead, like, yeah, thanks, she can count to one on her own.

Still, at least they're moving, so that's good.

And then she sees what's in the room.

"Justin," she says. "Where the hell are we?"

He looks way too proud of himself. "We're in the nerve centre of the wizard council."

"The nerve -" She takes a step forward, runs her hand over some vines covering one of the machines. And then quickly pulls it back. "Ew, gross, are those actual nerves?"

"What did you think they were?"

"Not body parts." Clearly, or else she wouldn't be going around _touching them._

"They're not body parts," he says, and tugs on one of them. "They're organically grown life forms that produce energy."

Yeah, that sounds like body parts to her. So she's just going to, you know. _Not_ touch them.

"So," she says, "what are we actually doing in here?"

"First," he says, "we need to shut down the alien connection to the wizard world."

"Alien connection?"

He sighs. "Clearly, they're controlling the wizard world somehow. We need to find out how they're doing it and switch it off."

Right. So, that should be - easy?

"Hey," she says. "Hand me your wand."

"What for?" he asks, but he does it anyway. He's so easy.

"Because this is super gross, and I didn't want to get it on mine."

"Alex -"

"Too late," she says, and moves out of the way when he tries to grab it from her. The weird buzzing in the room seems to be coming from all around them, so she walks over to the nearest nerve-covered machine and uses Justin's wand to clear it off, until she can see the flashing lights beside the label that identifies it as the wizard court air conditioning system. Boring.

She tries another machine, and then another, while Justin does the same on the other side of the room. Portal connection, new wizard registration, ANTI-PLASTIC DETECTION: IMPORTANT (she almost switches that one off, except it's covered in, like, a million buttons and none of them are labelled, which seems like a lot of effort), and then, finally -

"Universal translator," she reads aloud. "Hey, what about this one?"

Justin's at her side before she's even finished. "That's it! Alex, you're a genius."

He looks like he wishes he could take it back as soon as he says it, but it's too late. She's totally going to remember this. And remind him of it every time he calls her out for doing something stupid. (Which, let's face it, is probably going to be a lot.)

"I know," she says. And then, because it's fun to hear and everything, but still totally not true, "So how do we use it?"

"Let's see," he mutters. He holds up one of the nerve to his ears, and then - because it's a nerve, duh, not a bullhorn - lets it drop. So, maybe neither of them are exactly geniuses. "Okay, I don't know. Maybe if we press one of the buttons?"

"How about this one?" she asks, picking a button at random. Hey, randomness has worked pretty well for them so far.

Except, the next thing Justin says comes out like, "Emiy, O fup'v vjopl zua tjuamf fu vjev."

So. That probably wasn't the right button.

"Jeph up, O dep goy vjot," she say impatiently, and then - well, she's kind of forgotten what button she pressed (hey, it was random, okay?), so she picks another one and presses that instead.

"Id-day ou-yay ix-fay it-way?"

And then -

"Obviously-way ot-nay."

"Old-hay our-yay orses-hay," she says. At least they're getting closer.

One more button. This should totally work, right?

"Alex -"

Hey, look at that.

"Don't do that again," he says. Like, duh. What are the chances of her randomly picking the exact same button again?

"So, did it work?" she asks, and he shakes his head.

"I don't know. If it did, the aliens won't be able to communicate with the wizard world any more."

"So, we're done?"

"No," he says. "But it's a start."

Okay, fine. So, step two -

Yeah, she has no idea what step two is.

"What now?" she asks.

"Now," he says, "we try to find a way to destroy the alien ships."

"Destroy?"

Justin looks at her.

"Cool."

Still using Justin's wand, she moves on to the next machine, and the next; WizTech power regulator (switched off), anti-mutation control, wizard portal connection, defence -

Defence Array.

"Um," she says. "Justin?"

"What?"

"I think I found it."

"Defence array," he reads, coming over to stand by her again. "Okay."

Okay.

So, here goes nothing. Or the entire fate of the wizard world.

When she reaches for the machine, though, Justin grabs her hand; she expects him to let go of it, like he's just making a point, but instead he squeezes it tighter, and holds a finger up to his lips.

So, okay, what are they -

Then she hears it; footsteps, right outside, and coming closer.

So she'd better move quickly.

Before she can do anything, though, the door opens in front of them, and five - wait, six, that's probably worse - very angry wizards burst into the room.

Alex freezes, and whispers to Justin, "Stay very still."

"What are you doing in here?" one of the wizards demands. He could probably be talking to anyone.

"I think it's working," she whispers.

"It's not working," a second wizard says, and then Justin goes and ruins it by moving. So much for her great plan, then.

"I don't think we've met," she says, taking a step forward. "I'm ... someone who's totally supposed to be here. And you are?"

No? Well, there goes Plan B. Justin better be thinking of something.

"Actually," Justin says, "we're nerve inspectors. You know, here to check that everything's running smoothly, that the nerves are ... responsive."

And then he actually picks one up and strokes it, which is gross, but whatever. If it gets them out of trouble, she's fine with it.

"And they are," he finishes. "So we'll just be going."

He moves forward, pulling her with him, but the first wizard stops them before they can take more than a couple of steps.

"Hold on," he says. "If you're the nerve inspector, where's your nerve inspector badge?"

Justin looks at Alex, and she shrugs. What, does he think she just carries around fake badges for every occasion? She only has, like, ten, and none of them say 'nerve inspector' on them, that's just ridiculous.

"I, uh, left it at home?" he tries.

"I don't think so," the wizard says.

"Damn it," Justin says. "How did you find us?"

"We got a call about a disturbance. Seems like the universal translator was messing up, thought we'd come down to check it out."

Alex doesn't need Justin's accusing look to tell her that, okay, this one may have been her fault. A little.

"I see," he says.

"We're going to have to take you both in."

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that," Justin says, stepping in front of Alex and raising his -

Wand. Which she still has. So really, he's just threatening them with his hand.

Crap.

He looks around, panicked, and as the wizards advance forward, Alex does the only thing she can think to do.

She presses the button.

And then there's a flash of white light, just like when they were in in Justin's room, and this can't be happening, not now -

When the light fades and Alex's eyes adjust, Justin is gone. So are the security wizards, which would be a good thing, except that _Justin is gone,_ and she's all alone and she can't hear anything except that stupid buzzing, and freaking aliens are taking over the entire world world and she has no idea what to do because Justin is gone.

She really needs to pull it together. Like, right now.

Okay, so. Justin isn't here any more, but that doesn't mean he's with the aliens, right? He could just have been transported away by the security wizards.

Who left all their stuff here, lying on the ground. Right.

(In front of her, barely readable numbers underneath the nerves count down from 30:00:00 to 29:59:59.)

And Harper and Zeke are out there somewhere, and Max, and she just pressed a button that's going to destroy the alien ships in half an hour, except Justin is on one of those stupid ships -

Oh, who is she kidding? She's screwed.

On the bright side, at least that means she can't make things any worse than they already are.

As quickly as she can, she gathers up the stuff the security wizards left behind when they - well. She's guessing they were beamed up to the alien ship, because, really, the only alternative is that they were disintegrated or whatever, which means Justin is -

On the alien ship. That's the only option.

She quickly flips through the stuff she picked up - more handcuffs, wands, something small and black and shiny smooth that's either some sort of magical device or just a really pretty rock. Nothing that looks like it's a transporter beam. But, hey, she's in the nerve centre, right? So, maybe there's something in here she can use.

Which means she's going to have to touch the nerves. But at least it's for a good cause.

She doesn't have time to check all the machines, so she goes with what she knows, walking through and picking at random. Even with the labels, she has no idea what most of them are for, and she's about to give up (seriously, there's no way she's checking this entire place, even for Justin) when she rushes past another machine and then has to go back and take another look.

 _Transportation,_ is all it says. Which means it could be a transporter beam, or it could just be the generator that keeps the elevators running. But it's pretty much her only option, so, really, what could it hurt?

(Just - don't answer that, okay?)

Justin, she thinks. She's doing this for Justin. And to save the world, or whatever.

Clutching the wizards' belongings tightly in her hand, she takes a deep breath, and flicks the switch.

-

Alex blinks a couple of times to clear to weird after images from her head, and when she can see again, she's in the middle of an alien corridor. It's a different part of the ship than she and Justin were on the first time, which is probably a good thing - at least there are no aliens surrounding her this time - but it also means she has no idea where she is.

But, okay. She just has to figure out where Justin is and get them both out of here. Which shouldn't be that hard - like, how big can an alien spaceship possibly be?

The walls around her aren't completely smooth; here and there they're broken by the same flashing lights as before, like they're alien computers or light switches or something. If she knew how, she could probably use them to find Justin, but - well, she doesn't, so there's no use dwelling on that.

(Maybe it would be easier, she thinks, if Justin were trying to find her, but - whatever.)

She pulls out her wand instead, because, hey. Magic, she can do.

"We've been split from one another, now please help me find my brother."

Something sparks at the end of her wand, and then a tiny blue ball of light shoots out, rounding the corner and stopping there like it's waiting for her. So. Either the spell worked or it didn't, and there's only one way to find out.

She follows the light down what she could swear is an endless series of corridors (way worse than in the wizard world; at least there they have coloured walls), and if she's going around in circles, she has absolutely no idea. Seriously, who did these aliens hire to decorate? The beeping all around her seems to fade in and out, sometimes so loud she could swear she's about to run right into a whole group of aliens, sometimes so quiet she could almost believe she's alone.

Which she realises she isn't when she rounds another corner and almost bumps into a group of aliens.

So. Carefully. Right.

See, this is what Justin's good for. She's mostly the leap before you look type. But she has about twenty-five minutes to find Justin and get out, so getting captured right now eally isn't an option.

Reconnaissance. Stealth. She can do those things.

She moves slowly, even though every part of he is screaming to go faster, that they're running out of time, but she ignores it; tries to think of Justin instead, imagine what he'd say if he were here with her, and that helps, a little. It's also a little weird that she knows pretty much exactly what he'd be saying, but whatever. She can think about that later.

Somewhere in front of her, she can hear beeping; not like the stuff all around her, but like that stupid alien language thing, which would be really helpful if Justin were here to translate.

".__ .   .... ._ ..._ .   _._. ._ .__. _ .._ ._. . _..   _ .... .   ._. ___ __. .._ .   .__ .. __.. ._ ._. _.."

Ugh, don't these aliens have anything better to do than stand around and gossip all day? Aren't they supposed to be taking over the world, or something?

".... .   .. ...   ... . _._. .._ ._. .   ._._._   .__. ._. . .__. ._ ._. .   .__. .... ._ ... .   _ .__ ___"

"_ ._ ._. __. . _ ...   ._ _._. __._ .. ._. . _..   ._._._   _.. . ... _ ._. .._ _._. _ .. ___ _.   ___ .._.   . ._ ._. _ ....   .__ .. ._.. ._..   _... . __. .. _.   ... ___ ___ _."

Seriously, _move_.

"_... . __. .. _. _. .. _. __.   _._. ___ .._ _. _ _.. ___ .__ _."

Finally the beeping starts to fade, moving off ahead of her, and Alex starts forward again; carefully, but more quickly, now. She's running out of time.

She follows the ball of light down another couple of corridors, and then it starts growing brighter, almost until she's sure it's about to give her away. She's about to vanish it when it zips over to what looks like a regular section of wall, and winks out.

Crap. What now?

The Justin voice inside her head is really starting to freak her out; she could swear she can actually hear him, saying -

"Hello? Somebody let me out of this thing."

No, that's not right.

Except it also wasn't in her head.

"Justin?" she hisses. There's a pause, and then -

"Alex?"

"Where are you?"

"I'm right here."

Yeah, that's really helpful, thank you for that.

"I can't see you," she says, still trying to keep her voice low.

"I can't see you either."

Yeah, she got that. It's weird, though; it sounds like he's really close, like he's almost sounding next to her. But there's nothing there except the wall.

Where the light vanished.

"Hold on," she says. If she's wrong about this - well, if she's wrong about this, Justin won't be able to see her, so she can probably pretend it never happened.

"Montanio, vanisho, wall be gone," she say, waving her wand, and -

There Justin is, standing right in front of her.

"Alex!" he says. "How did you -"

"Never mind," she says, and grabs the front of his shirt, hurrying him down the corridor. If this is where they're keeping prisoners, the aliens might be back soon, and the last thing she wants is to get caught right after she managed to find Justin. "We need to get out of here. Like, now."

"We can't," he says, and she stares at him. Is he crazy? "Alex -"

Whatever he's about to say is drowned out by a sudden wailing; not human or alien, but high, like some kind of siren. "What?" she yells, not really worrying about making noise any more; even if an alien was standing right next to them, she doubts it would be able to hear her.

"I said," Justin says, leaning closer, until she can feel his breath on her cheek, "they're about to fire on Earth."

"There's a fire?" she yells back. All the more reason to get out of here, then.

"No," he says. "They're going to destroy the world."

Oh, that's just great.

"Justin," she says. "I set the defense array. We've got about twenty minutes."

Justin pauses, like he's listening - seriously, is everything here in code? - and then nods. "We've got five."

Five minutes to save the world. Twenty minutes to get off the ship before they both blow up.

Whose bright idea was this, again?

"I know where the control centre is," he says, and she can hear him a little better, now. Maybe the sirens have died down a little, or maybe she's just getting used to it. "Come on."

He takes her hand, but he doesn't bother to be careful, this time. Instead he runs, pulling her along behind him, and for once, Alex almost doesn't mind.

(Almost. She still hates running, it's just that there are some things she hates more. Like being blown up.)

"Wait," she says, and he does, looking impatient. "I took this stuff that the wizards left -"

She wonders, briefly, if maybe they're around here somewhere too, but one look at Justin's face tells her more than she probably needs to know. Okay, so, escaping. Right now.

"You should at least take a wand," she says, handing one over. "And this thing, too. I have no idea what it is, but -"

"It's a magical pulse," he says, and, yeah, that means nothing to her, but Justin seems to know what it is, so whatever. "Come on, we should keep moving."

Ugh. Next time, someone is going to have to remind her that saving the world is really a lot of effort. And that maybe she should let someone else do it.

It doesn't take them long for Justin to stop again, and Alex looks around, trying to catch her breath. It looks more like where she and Justin were taken the first time, only not exactly; the walls are wider here, almost circular, and in the middle of the floor is something that looks like -

"This is the control centre," he says. Unnecessarily; even she could figure out that one.

"So, do you know how to work it?"

"Um," he says. "Sure."

Yeah, not really inspiring confidence here. "Justin -"

"Do you have a better plan?"

Well, not exactly. Except for maybe doing it faster. She has no idea how long they have left, but it can't be more than a couple of minutes.

Which, predictably, is when they're interrupted by an alien.

"Justin," she says, and he waves her off, _not now, I'm busy._

"I'm almost there," he says.

"Justin!"

".. _. _ ._. .._ _.. . ._. ...   _._.__"

Justin turns around at the same time the alien lunges for her, barely managing to pull her back in time to avoid the alien's tentacles. She waves her wand, flinging every spell she can think of off the top of her head, but most of them slide right off, and the ones that don't barely seem to slow the alien down. She trips up its legs, except it has, like, five more; ties it up, and it unravels the knots with its extra arms; throws it back against the curving wall, but it just gets right up again.

This time, it goes for Justin, and before Alex can ward it off, Justin goes flying up in the air and lands, hard.

"Justin," she says, rushing over to him. "Are you okay?"

Before he can answer, she can feel something curl around her, and she looks down at the tentacle wrapped around her waist as she's yanked off the floor. Before she can go too far, Justin mutters something, waving his wand, and the alien staggers back. She scrambles forward as the tentacle's grip loosens, into Justin's arms, and he reaches down and pulls something out of his pocket.

And throws it at the alien.

"What -" she says, but before she can finish, Justin's grabbing her and pulling her down, covering her eyes with his hand and hunched over her like he's protecting her from the alien. Which is surprisingly brave, for Justin, but unnecessary, these guys totally aren't -

There's a flash, then, not quite white but almost out of the range of sight, and blinding. Worse than the alien transport beam, even with Justin shielding her. She feels like the room s spinning, like she's going to be sick, and she holds onto Justin with everything she has.

When the dizziness and nausea start to fade, and she can almost see again, she stands up - unsteadily, still leaning on Justin - and glances around at where the alien is.

Or, rather, where the alien was.

"What was that?" she asks. Her voice is shaking; she thinks she might be, too.

"Magical pulse," Justin says.

"What did it -" she starts, and then, "You know what? I don't want to know."

Whatever happened to the wizards, whatever happened to the alien, maybe she's just better off not thinking about it. Which is good, because not thinking about stuff is totally her specialty.

Except maybe she should think about some stuff. Like the sirens that re still blaring, but getting louder now.

"Justin," she says, but he's already moving; she doesn't fall down without him there to hold her up, but it's a close thing, and he looks as unsteady as she feels.

"Give me a second," he says, and she's about to say they don't have a second, the aliens are going to destroy Earth _now_ , when he presses a button, and waits.

The sirens stop.

"Done," he says, and Alex says, "Yeah. Except for how the ship is still about to blow up."

"Right," he says, and moves forward to take her hand. Smiling grimly, she waves her wand, and it's just a simple flashing spell, it should be no problem.

Nothing happens.

"Justin," she says, but he's already let go of her. "It's not working."

"I know," he says, already back at the machine. "It didn't work for me before, and I thought maybe it was because I didn't have my wand -"

"We need to get out of here now -"

"- when we flashed out before -"

"- going to blow up, Justin -"

"- maybe some kind of dampeners on the ship, so nothing can get off the ship without being beamed out."

Well, that's just great. How are they supposed to beam out of here? It's not like she can work their stupid alien machines, she's not a huge geek like -

Oh. Right. Never mind.

"Can you get us out of here?" she asks, and she could swear that beeping has started again, the alien beeping this time -

"... . .. __.. .   _ .... .   .. _. _ ._. .._ _.. . ._. ...   _._.__"

Yep, it's definitely started. She ducks as something goes flying over her head, not bothering to look back at what it was - it doesn't really matter, she's being attacked by aliens, that's pretty much always bad - and runs towards Justin, grabbing hold of him just as he says, "Done!"

"Can we please get out of here now?"

Justin puts and arm around her waist as a second projectile flies past, way closer this time, and she loses her balance -

"Hold on," he says, and she does.

-

When they land this time, there's no blinding flash of light, or maybe she's just used to it; instead there's a thud as she finishes falling, almost knocking her breath out, and something soft underneath her. She moves her hands up, feels her hands connect with fabric and then skin, and opens her eyes to see Justin less than an inch away from her face.

"We did it," she says, grinning down at him, and he smiles back, reaches up a hand to brush the hair away from her face.

"Yeah," he says, and she has to be crushing him, they landed pretty hard, but he doesn't push her away.

Instead, he pulls her down, until she can feel all of him stretched out beneath her, and he's so close she has to close her eyes.

Which is why she doesn't notice what's about to happen until it's already happening. Justin presses his lips to hers, softly, in a way that's almost totally normal, and then not so much, his lips parting, licking into her mouth, his hands tightening in her hips. Kissing her.

Which is - actually not the weirdest thing that's happened to her today.

She kisses him back - at first in surprise, and then in earnest, her tongue sliding against his, and she can _feel_ him beneath her, for real, and -

The sky explodes.

It's enough to shock her out of whatever they're doing, roll off Justin and look up, and she has to shield her eyes. Above them, alien ships in the sky - too many to count, unless maybe you're Justin - start exploding, one by one, setting off a chain reaction until it looks like the whole sky is on fire. She catches her breath - they did that, they were up there, that could have been them - and then releases it, trying to breathe normally, to stop her heart from racing. Even if she's not sure exactly what caused it.

She looks back at Justin, but before she can say anything - he looks as shocked as she probably does, and she doesn't know if it's because he kissed her or because they just blew up an entire alien fleet - his walkie talkie crackles.

"Justin, come in Justin!"

Zeke sounds frantic. He'd have to be, to forget the code names.

Although, they probably don't need them any more.

"Zeke," Justin says, but he's still looking at Alex. "Is everybody safe?"

"Present and accounted for," Zeke says. "Alien Language League reporting in."

There's a pause.

"And Max."

Justin relaxes, and Alex is still so close she can feel it. She should probably move away, put some distance between them, except she's not exactly sure that's what she wants, and she doesn't think she could move now even if she did want to.

"Zeke," Justin says, taking a deep breath as if he's about to give some sort of big stupid speech, and then letting it go. "We did it."

She can hear girlish screams over the walkie talkie, and she's pretty sure only some of it belongs to Harper.

"Reading you loud and clear," Zeke says. "Debriefing at the headquarters in ten?"

Justin looks at Ale at Alex again, and holds her gaze. "Make that fifteen."

"Roger," Zeke says "You wouldn't believe what Harper and I did, it was amazing, first -"

But Justin's already letting go of the walkie talkie, pulling her back to him. She goes, and she tells herself it's just because she's too tired to fight it.

"Alex," he says, and she waits; maybe now is where the big speech comes in.

Instead, he kisses her. Not like before, just a light brush of his lips, but it's enough to make her remember. Like she could ever forget.

"Are you -" he says, and stops. "Are we -"

"Okay," she says, and smiles at him. Weirdly enough, she thinks it's true.

Justin smiles for real, then. "Better than okay," he says. "I'd say we're heroes."

Heroes. Well, they did just save the planet or whatever.

It has kind of a nice ring to it.

"Except," she says, "we're the only ones who knew what the aliens were planning."

Justin looks confused, and then recognition sets in. "Everybody else just thought they were getting a bunch of free meals."

"Exactly."

"So nobody else knows we're heroes."

"So maybe we shouldn't tell them," she points out.

"Right," he agrees. "Which means we can't use it to raise our standing in the wizard competition."

Right. Damn.

"So we're back to square one," she says, and Justin looks down at her, his eyes darkening.

"Well," he says. Slowly, almost uncertain. "Not exactly square one."

He doesn't move, like he's waiting for her, and she can practically feel the tension radiating off him. She could make him squirm a little, make him suffer, but, well. Most of the fun seems to have gone out of it. (But only most.)

"No," she agrees finally, leaning in. Just a little. "Not exactly."

She closes her eyes.


End file.
